Cereals are a staple food item and are nutritionally important, in that cereals are sources of energy, fiber and various minerals and vitamins. Cereals are consumed both as a cold cereal and as a hot cereal. For example, cereals are consumed as a cold cereal in the form of bread, cakes and cold breakfast foods, while hot cereals are consumed in the form of a porridge or mush, and the like. Greater amounts of cereal are consumed in the cold form, since the hot form requires preparation immediately prior to consuming, and that preparation is both time consuming and difficult to perform.
In this latter regard, when a cereal is cooked to provide that cereal in a hot form for immediate consumption, the cereal must be cooked in an amount of water which is carefully proportioned for the amount of cereal being cooked, and it must also be cooked for a very specific time. Otherwise, the cereal becomes unpalatable, either by virtue of being too "runny" or too "thick" or undercooked or overcooked. In addition, if the cooked cereal is not consumed quite soon after cooking, the consistency of the cooked cereal materially changes and, in addition, will form a film or "skin" on the surface thereof. Thus, the cooked cereal will quite rapidly become unpalatable.
For the above reasons, the popularity of cooked cereal is not nearly as great as the nutritional advantages thereof justify. The art has sought means of avoiding or at least in part mitigating some of these difficulties in connection with cooked cereals, but the art has not provided an adequate solution thereto. For example, cereals are available in the "quick" cooking form, where the cereals have been partially gelatinized (partially cooked) such that the cooking time for the cereal is considerably reduced. Thus, the householder can more quickly cook the cereal and reduce the time period of careful attention to the cooking thereof. However, this approach still requires very careful proportioning of the water to the cereal for cooking, and this approach does not avoid the difficulties and unpalatable results of undercooking or overcooking, nor does it avoid the necessity of promptly serving the cooked cereal.
Another approach to the art is to provide the cereal in an "instant" form where the cereal has been essentially fully cooked (essentially gelatinized) and then dehydrated; and the cereal can be prepared for serving simply by mixing with hot water. However, again, the amount of water used with the cereal must be carefully proportioned, and, again, the cereal must be served promptly after preparation. Further, when this essentially fully cooked cereal is mixed with hot water, the texture and taste of the cereal are considerably different from a freshly cooked cereal and that texture and taste are not acceptable to a majority of the hot cereal consuming public.
Finally, another approach in the art is that of providing the cereal in a cooking bag. The purpose of this bag is solely to contain the cereal while being cooked in an excess of boiling water so that the cereal can be removed from the boiling water after being appropriately cooked and this approach avoids the necessity of carefully proportioning the amount of cereal to the water for cooking. However, this approach is considerably limited in regard to the cereals that can be so processed. Basically, this approach is applicable only to products such as long grain rice, in which the cereal grains are consumed as discrete grain particles, separate and apart from the starch and protein matrix generated during boiling of the cereal product. This approach allows water to percolate and diffuse throughout the bag during the entire cooking process, consequently allowing the dissolved solids to flow out of the cooking bag and into the excess cooking water. This approach is not applicable to typical hot breakfast cereals such as oatmeal, farina, corn grits, etc., in which the discrete cereal particles are uniformly dispersed in a creamy thick matrix of solubilized starches and proteins, which matrix is an integral part of the cereal product such that the separation by diffusion and subsequent loss of said matrix from the cereal inside the bag would materially alter and substantially harm the palatability and nutritional properties of the hot breakfast-type cereal. In addition, this approach will not avoid either undercooking or overcooking, and again the cereal must be served immediately after cooking.
It would therefore be of considerable advantage to the art to provide a package and method for cooking a wide variety of cereals wherein the cooking can be achieved without any critical proportioning of water to cereal. It would also be of advantage to provide such package and method which will also prevent both overcooking and undercooking, even with extended cooking times, and which will allow the cooked cereal to remain hot for extended periods of time without overcooking, significant changes in consistency, forming a "skin", and thus, avoiding the necessity for serving immediately after cooking. It would also be of advantage to the art to provide a container for such cooking such that the container can provide those most desired advantages.